Defending Champion Jamie Whincup showed the switch to Holden from Ford has had little effect on Triple Eight’s dominance of the Australian V8 Supercar Championship with a win in the opening round at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi.

In front of empty grandstands Whincup dominated the 43 lap race to lead home team mate Craig Lowndes and take an early lead in the defence of his Championship.

“It’s been a great day, we has a great strategy and it’s really cool under these lights.” said Whincup.

Mark Winterbottom was the first of the Fords in third place overcoming a 10 second penalty after he failed to line up properly at the start of the race.

Dick Johnson Racing’s James Courtney finished fourth just ahead of Gary Rogers Motorsport driver Lee Holdsworth in the Commodore

New Zealand driver Shane Van Gisburgen had a great late race dice with fellow Ford driver Paul Dumbrell to claim sixth.

It was a bad opening race for the Holden Racing Team with Will Davison failing to pick up points after suffering a huge engine blow up in his Commodore.

Davison’s teammate Garth Tander started from the rear of the grid and finished well back in the field in 26th place.

Russell Ingall was involved in an incident early in the race and soldiered on before finally retiring on lap 34.

The V8’s take to the track again later tonight with highlights of today’s race screening on the Seven Network in-between reruns of Beautiful Homes and Garden and My Fucking’ Restaurant Rules.